BABY, DO YOU LIKE IT

ROCK 'N ROLL DREAMS BY BOB LAWRENCE

Title: Rock 'n Roll Dreams
Author: Robert Lawrence
Publisher: Naked Mannekin
Format: 7.5 x 5" Chapbook
ISBN: 978-1-60725-954-1
List Price: $8.00
Inquiries: nakedmannekin@gmail.com

Remember those old t.v. shows where aliens from Zong travel by mego-turbo-hyper-sub-sonic phenollian waves to Earth and infiltrate our society by posing as humans and they're so good at it no one knows what's up and just before they take over and turn us all into okra or guano or something equally disgusting a little kid who was wise to them all along defeats them by burping potato chip breath on them and they dissolve into dissipating waves of technicolor yawns? If you do, you'll dig Bob Lawrence's take on modern American life even though it's poetry not science fiction. And if you don't, it's about time you ended your sad cultural deprivation and read Rock ‘n Roll Dreams to see what in the name of all that's bitchin' I'm so stoked about. This is inescapable stuff. BTW: He is a man with 3 first names, you know, Robert Alan Lawrence. Like James Earl Ray and Lee Harvey Oswald. There are no coincidences.

--CHARLIE NEWMAN

POGGIO CORPSE

I took my scissors with me to the Mercury Cafe on Friday night and we corpsed my poem Canto per Poggio. This is what happens when Chicago poets get their hands on sun-made California produce. Thanks to all the poets who contributed their voices to this project. This is an oleo of all the contributions I collected, so it would be virtually impossible to give credit to every poet represented here. But if anyone wants to take credit for their lines, please feel free.

In tosca I loaf
spin that ricotta pill
with me

green parsley
chants
in the chant room
totally roasted

bing baby bing!

roast your
sweet onion skin tongue
cherry baby arugula lips

white man clam
rock
rock
rock
tooooooooooooooo sweet

no white corn,
man
cherry to toes baby!
cherry to toes.

. . .

A nectarine sea
lemon sun setting
thinly.
Raw white
porn
cherry tomatoes
shave their sweet parmigiano

white bean doesn’t approve
she is such a prude.

. . .

I did not plant
green and yellow wax beans but
my green romanos greet me every morning
in august
heads rolling like summer squash.

. . .

The man clams
Josephine Lipuma
with a side
of chick sausage

prosecuted by karma

butter my beans in the summer
squash me
sweet and corny
spit on my belly

puree me, potato
skin
me like an olive
planted in my navel.

You braised my greens

with your
red celery heart

you were raw and sweet
but you left me
your parmigiano

you left me shaved
raw and bitter.

Guess what
--chicken butt

Cauliflower roasted

Guess whither
--chicken liver

Eggplant turns purple.

. . .

Rosemary and garlic
lean in close
for their next first kiss

honey dripping
gorgonzola oozing in the back
sliced fuji apples jealous
of the pears

lead them on
with lemon
wanta wanta wanta want a fanta

what do you we with arugula?

that caramelized rose
just like mother used to make
panceta jiggered

. . .

Rosemary escapes with Ricotta
to the
Savoy to see

Haricot Verts Balsamico
and the
Tijuana Brass.

Arugula sounds like honking.

. . .

VIOLENT FÜD

Potato Puree roasted
a whole snapper
and braised the right cheek
of a savory tomato sauce

with his fist!!!

The DA will be prosecuting di Parma
says Mayor Daley
and shaving
Parmigiano Arugula
because we have respect
for the law in this city.

JANUS THE TWO HEADED DOG

"ALMOST"S AND "NEVER WERE"S

lightening
never hurt as much,
bruises and
clenched fists
inconsequential
when compared to years of flinching, my
track shoe heart
running
a three minute mile at
any
sound of impact.

hail
never hurt as much,
direct hatred
never brought
the same pain
as knives twisted into spines
friendly
fire
digging under skin
till
innards drown,
devoured
by the friendliest hands

love
never hurt as much
too pure,
too certain to
manifest
demons like lost hope,
false
expectations.

death
never hurt as much
as blurrier things
like
Thunder
Rain
and Infatuation

© 2008 Esteban Colón

. . .

LISTENING FOR THE SUNRISE

There is no
comfort in the early morning
stillness

shadows staining
the bed sheets with
damp

sticky anxieties
eavesdropping
on unanswered questions

blurred at the edges
thunder rain infatuation
listening

for the sunrise
creeping through the grass
on the balls of its feet.

© 2008 Matthew S. Barton

. . .

She set down cards,
Cassandra
billed as entertainment
and
my body vibrated,
hand
tapping shoulders with realization,
her
harrowing words hardly noticed
till
my
tongue rang alarms of the last time
this
happened to Phil,
recalled her
dire prediction, the
laughter,
last time this
happened to Phil,
somebody died.

© 2008 Esteban Colón

. . .

IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR

I don’t know Phil
or Mark or
Stephen or whatever

his name is
I don’t know the woman sitting next to him
reading a magazine

or the kids strapped
in the back
seat watching movies

I don’t know where they are going or
who is waiting for
them
and I don’t know

why he is in such a
hurry to make a
left turn
before the light changes

crossing the double yellow line in his
brown minivan with the
sagging
rear suspension

all I know is the
last time
this happened to Phil
someone died
in that brown minivan

and some poor sonofabitch couldn’t
find the words to
say everything
is okay
because Phil is in a hurry

or whatever his
name is.

© 2008 Matthew S. Barton

. . .

POETRY 101

This
is the self explanatory beginning
the
portion of the poem used to call for attention
or
get you to
instantly relate to the speaker.

[pause] line break

Stanza two
fills with
deeper description, the
continued narrative
the
rising action of drama
that,
or
charged repetition of elements in the first stanza

[pause] line break

Stanza three
climax and falling action
for shorter poems
build
for longer
colorful metaphor
leading to
a dramatic,
possibly ironic
ending

[pause] This is not a line break. I just ran out of room.

© 2008 Esteban Colón

. . .

RIPPLES ON THE WATER

I just ran out of room
for all of the
answers to questions

I never asked
why I still smile at the

touch of a
caterpillar crawling up the
back of my hand

pebbles breaking
the surface of a pond

I never asked why
the swallows
return to capistrano and

I am not waiting
for anyone to explain
why this

isn’t a line break
I just ran out of room.

© 2008 Matthew S. Barton